The siege didn't start with a roar. It started with a collision of realities.
The first Silencer hit the golden barrier of [HOLD THE LINE] like a bird hitting a windowpane. There was no thud, only a wet, sizzling hiss as the creature's void-flesh boiled against Kaelen's Authority.
It shrieked—a sound that tore at the eardrums—and bounced back, its obsidian skin smoking.
But there were more.
"Hold!" Kaelen roared, his hand glued to the white marble interface.
The impact of the pack hit the shield.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The golden barrier rippled violently. Kaelen felt every strike in his chest, as if the monsters were hammering against his own ribs. His knees buckled, sliding on the marble.
"Stability at eighty percent!" Renna shouted, firing her rifle through the barrier. The tungsten slugs passed through the golden light without resistance, punching into the mass of shadows outside.
One Silencer fell, its head exploding. Two more took its place.
And behind them, the massive, glitching form of the Correction Unit stepped forward. It didn't rush. It raised a hand, gathering a sphere of violet anti-light.
"It's charging a purge!" Renna yelled, reloading frantically. "Kaelen, the shield won't take a direct hit from that thing!"
Kaelen gritted his teeth, blood dripping from his nose onto the pristine interface. "It has to."
He didn't have the mana to reinforce it. He only had his will. He dug his heels into the stone, bracing for the impact that would likely turn his bones to dust.
Then, the air changed.
It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure. The hair on Kaelen's arms stood up. The hum of the Anchor, usually a steady bass note, spiked into a high, singing soprano.
Elara stood up.
She didn't use her hands to push herself off the ground. She simply rose, drawn upward by an invisible string. The dust around her feet swirled in a perfect circle.
Kaelen looked at her.
The corruption on her arm was glowing—not black, but molten gold. Cracks of light were crawling up her neck, across her cheek, illuminating the ancient script written into her skin.
She didn't look at the monsters. She looked at the barrier.
"Drop it," Elara whispered.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the shrieks of the Silencers like a razor.
"What?" Kaelen rasped, sweat stinging his eyes. "If I drop it, they swarm us."
"Drop it, Anomaly," she said. She stepped forward, past him, walking toward the edge of the platform. "Or I will break it myself."
Kaelen looked at her golden eyes. He saw no fear. He saw only the terrifying boredom of a hurricane waiting to touch down.
He made his choice.
"Renna, cease fire!" Kaelen ordered.
He pulled his hand from the interface.
[ABILITY DEACTIVATED: HOLD THE LINE ]
The golden wall vanished.
The Silencers screeched in triumph. The barrier was gone. The meat was exposed.
The pack lunged. The Correction Unit fired its violet beam.
Elara didn't raise a hand. She didn't chant a spell. She didn't throw fire or lightning.
She simply took a step.
Her bare foot touched the obsidian floor.
[ OLD LIGHT PROTOCOL: ENGAGED ]
A ripple of distortion expanded from her footstep. It wasn't an explosion. It was a rewrite.
The violet beam hit the ripple and... ceased. It didn't detonate. It simply stopped existing, erased from the air as if the file had been corrupted.
The Silencers leaped into the air.
Elara looked at them.
"You are not permitted," she said.
The lead Silencer froze in mid-air. Its edges began to blur. The sharp, terrifying definition of its void-body turned fuzzy, then pixelated, then transparent.
It didn't scream. It didn't die. It became a memory.
In less than a second, the monster dissolved into colorless mist, erased from the timeline.
Renna gasped, lowering her rifle. "That wasn't an attack. That was... deletion."
Elara walked forward. Every step sent another ripple through the cavern.
The second Silencer tried to run. The ripple caught it. Gone. The third clawed at the ground. Gone.
The Correction Unit, the massive avatar of the System, tried to backpedal. Its glitching aura flared, trying to calculate a countermeasure.
[ ERROR: OPPONENT LEVEL UNQUANTIFIABLE ] [ LOGIC FAILURE ]
Elara stopped ten feet from the Unit. She tilted her head.
"Valerius sent a puppet," she said softly. "How insulting."
She raised her hand. She snapped her fingers.
SNAP.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
The Correction Unit didn't dissolve. It imploded. Its torso crumpled inward as if crushed by a giant, invisible fist. Metal shrieked, sparks flew, and the machine collapsed into a pile of scrap metal and static.
Silence returned to the cavern.
But it wasn't the peace of victory.
CRACK.
A massive fissure tore across the ceiling of the cavern. Rocks the size of cars plummeted into the black lake, sending tsunamis of water crashing against the causeway.
The Anchor groaned beneath their feet. The white marble interface flickered violently.
[ SYSTEM WARNING ] [ TERRITORY INSTABILITY: +6% ] [ SOURCE: ELARA (UNBOUND) ]
Kaelen stumbled, feeling the instability in his own chest. The mark over his heart burned like a brand.
"Elara!" Kaelen shouted. "Stop!"
Elara swayed. The golden light in her veins dimmed, turning back to angry, throbbing black corruption. She coughed, bringing a hand to her mouth. When she pulled it away, it was stained with golden ichor.
She turned to face him. Her eyes were dimming, the terrifying power receding back beneath the surface.
"I cannot stay awake, Kaelen," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The world... it cracks when I move."
She gestured to the ceiling, where dust was still raining down.
"If I fight freely," she said, "I bring the Silence faster. I am too heavy for this reality."
Kaelen ran to her, catching her as she stumbled. Her skin was burning hot.
"We held them off," Kaelen said, looking at the empty platform. "We won."
"No," Elara said, leaning against him. "We bought a moment."
She pointed across the lake, toward the tunnel entrance.
The shadows were moving again. But they weren't attacking.
A second Correction Unit had appeared at the tunnel mouth. But it didn't step onto the causeway. It didn't fire.
It raised a massive, mechanical arm and fired a metal spike into the cavern wall.
THUNK.
Then another. THUNK.
The spikes pulsed with violet light.
[ SYSTEM ANALYSIS ] [ ENEMY TACTIC: SIEGE ANCHORING ] [ EFFECT: AUTHORITY DAMPENING ]
"He's adjusting," Kaelen realized, watching the machines set up a perimeter. "He knows he can't brute force you. So he's locking us in."
"He will starve the Anchor," Elara said weakly. "He will cut the ley lines. He will edit the water sources. He will wait for me to sleep and for you to starve."
She looked up at Kaelen.
"I can end this battle," she said, looking at the siege lines. "I can walk out there and erase them all."
"But?"
"But if I do, the ceiling comes down. And ten more units will arrive tomorrow. And I will burn out before the week is over."
She placed a trembling hand on his chest, over the glowing glyph.
"You need a kingdom, Kaelen," she whispered. "Not a miracle."
She closed her eyes and slumped against him, the exhaustion finally claiming her.
Kaelen held her. He looked at the siege lines forming in the dark. He looked at Renna, who was staring at the pile of scrap metal that used to be a god-killer.
He looked back at the Anchor interface.
The text on the screen changed.
[ COMBAT RESOLVED ] [ TERRITORY SECURED (TEMPORARY) ] [ DEFENSE SLOT: UNLOCKED ]
A new menu option blinked into existence. It was demanding. It was hungry.
[ SYSTEM REQUIREMENT ] [ POPULATION REQUIRED: 1+ ] [ CURRENT POPULATION: 0 ]
Kaelen laughed. It was a dry, bitter sound.
"Population," he muttered.
"What?" Renna asked, limping over.
"The Anchor," Kaelen said, staring at the screen. "It doesn't just need mana. It needs subjects."
He looked at the unconscious goddess in his arms. He looked at the Mercenary with the broken leg. And he looked at the ring of monsters waiting in the dark.
"Valerius wants to see if we can survive a siege," Kaelen said, his blue eye flaring with cold determination.
He turned back to the interface.
"Let's show him what a Kingdom looks like."